TNH – The Northern Hemisphere

Article featured in issue 15 March 2019 of The Black Watch fanzine…..

by Michael Conboy.

They said the streets were paved with gold, Transalpino rail tickets have a lot to answer for!

The student travel agency was the company of choice for many travelling supporters not due to the prices but due to the fact the tickets could be easily “changed” with a little bit of creativity and ingenuity. The destination on the tickets could be rubbed out with a decent ink rubber and a more exotic location put in its place, somewhere like Munchen which was renowned for its many designer sportswear outlets.

Many of these shops were known to have trainers on display in pairs, which was unheard of in England. For the more light-fingered football fan this was kid in a sweet shop stuff. The other attraction was the stocking of rare Adidas trainers only seen on the continent.

In the 80’s the only two things that mattered to me were football and music, I suspect around 1984 at my middle school we all started to be more conscious about what we were wearing, I remember games lessons in bleak winter mornings shivering like an extra from Kes but also eyes open to what my class mates had on their feet. I came from a working-class family both parents working in the public sector so I could beg and moan and get them to buy the latest football boots. I definitely remember my first pair being Puma, they soon got coated with mud on the top playing field.

Just to put things in context pre-1984 we were all stood in the play ground grey skies above in black Donkey Jackets with the faux leather on the shoulders, doc boots and turned up jeans. Bleak times, the smell of Benson and Hedges made us feel like we were fresh from down the pit.

About that time, I had started smoking cigars, age 13 this was the only contraband we could get from round at the shops with a hand-written note signed “Dad”.

After school what was important to me was BMX bikes, music, smoking and clothes. I was born in the house I grew up in which was in a Cul-De-Sac, I lived with my parents and my Sister who famously dropped me down the back of a wardrobe and tried to knife me with a spoon.

I had been smoking cigars for a few Months when my mate from school came out with a Capstan Super Strength, “Connie, my Dad smokes these”, brilliant I thought, taking a big drag and choking inside, feeling dizzy and extremely unwell, cheers mate I said that was brilliant.

I got on my BMX and rode home, the heat in my throat didn’t matter, I ate a few mints and park my BMX in the back of the garage. 17.50 I had ten minutes to spare before the 18.00 tea time deadline.

Its Friday night which is Fish tea in our house hold, no time to go to my bed room I wash my hands and join the family table opposite my sister.

I start to tuck into my fish but am distracted by a sniffing noise, I look up my Dad has got that face and is breathing in and out……” I can smell smoke?” he says, my Sister looks at me with an almost mocking smile, she knows…. I know, I just need to keep my composure, he catches my eye. “Has someone been Smoking?”.

Not me I say it was him from next door, anything to get me through this. We used to stash our fags in a polythene bag in the woods, we would go back to those 20 Silk Cut weeks or Months later and they would be insect ridden and mouldy, they still smoked great, the damp flavour of bark and dead insects.

We used to hang around in the woods at the back of our house, I remember around 1985 things started to change from a fashion perspective. I will never forget a mate coming down the woods and he was actually only going for a dentist appointment but he was dressed in grey Farah’s, pink La Coste polo shirt and Pink La Coste cardigan, a life changing moment for all involved, he had a tooth extracted I had seen the promised land!

Men wearing pink!! But It looked so good, almost like a reverse aggressive look. Little did we know as 14-year-old lads that this effeminate look was being adopted across the football terraces.

Flick hair to cover one eye, like the cover of the David Bowie Low album. I remember a lad in my class bleached his flick blonde. There was talk of other lads dying their various colours all part of the posturing that went with that look, a look familiar with the New Romantic’s but much more aggressive.

In these early days of the casual movement the look was changing constantly, but I think my strongest look was the middleclass golfer, Farah Slacks preferably Grey or Black, a bright coloured polo shirt which had to be La Coste at that time matched with a Pringle jumper. Footwear was always Adidas for me there were a lot of Trimm Trabs around at the time. I think a lot of their domination and fascination was down to one-man Robert Wade Smith from Liverpool.

The legend goes that Wade Smith arranged a deal with an unknown German independent retailer and travelled maverick style in a van over to Germany on the ferry with his life savings of Seven Thousand pounds.

Meeting the German, he showed Wade Smith the stock, he could not believe how much there was, all the rare Adidas, Forest Hills, many of the City Series and 400 pairs of Trimm Trab. Blown away with this find he had to stay calm and business like and asked how much the German wanted for his stock. Pondering for while the German lays all his cards on the table and says he wants Twenty-Eight Thousand Deutsche Mark and is happy to wait for a Bankers Draft if the deal is done.

Looking the retailer in the eye and smiling widely Wide Smith says you have a deal and are you ok if I pay you in cash, the German looked white and faint, in all his years in retail he had never sold over 400 pairs of trainers and never seen so many Deutsche Mark!

Heading back home to Liverpool in the van with his life savings in Adidas trainers in the back was a nervous journey to say the least. Back on dry land he opened the now famous “Wade Smith” sports shop, in 3 weeks he sold all 400 pairs of Trimm Trab……the rest is history!

My first pair of Adidas trainers were the Kick, I think they were the school trainers of choice by most early teenage boys, black and white like a young sibling of the Samba. They blended in with the school uniform and went unnoticed by the power-hungry school teachers who were forced involuntarily to stand in the freezing cold at play times watching over the pupils in the playground. I soon upgraded to what is now a staple favourite the “Jeans” there were only two choices of colours in the 80’s the blue or the red. The red was quite a bold statement to say the least and like the bleached flick fringe and pink cardigan quite a bold look to pull off.

I opted obviously for the blue ones, had to beg and moan to my Mum for a while but I finally wore her down (hope she doesn’t read this). The day arrived and we went into town to get them, I couldn’t wait to get home on the bus to get them on and show them off to the lads up the woods. There is something magical about that blue box!

It was a winters afternoon after school I got to wear the brand new Adidas Jeans for the first time, they looked great with the charcoal Farah’s and lambswool V neck Pringle jumper, just the outfit for riding the BMX up the woods, I wouldn’t have looked out of place on the 18th tee on the Old Course at St Andrews, followed by a Glenfiddich in the members lounge with the Rabbits Secretary.

Midway up the woods we had lovingly designed and self manufactured a set of jumps, for a group of 14-year old’s this was quite an ambitious landscaping project! In between Maths homework, trying to organise the Cul-de-sac football league and setting fire to anything dry and flammable we had done extremely well. I must add this was manual work, and at this time most of us were smoking a King Edward cigar on a daily basis subject to availability and how dry they were in our hiding place, so at times we did struggle for breath.

Tackling the jumps in my new Adidas Jeans I was getting a lot of height on my DP Firebird Freestyler BMX, feeling confident I thought I might as well tackle the biggest jump before my tea which went over shallow beck. Taking a run up I pedalled as hard as I could, by that time I had committed to the jump. I hit it at some speed and handled it well unfortunately on landing the CW bars on my bike became lose in the clamp and I plummeted over the handle bars, hitting the soft ground I wasn’t injured just coated in mud, there was no chance I would be allowed into the Members lounge of the St Andrews Golf Club now!

Dusting myself down and picking my bike up I look down, a feeling of dread engulfs me….my brand-new Adidas Jeans trainers were covered in mud.

I am almost frozen in shock, it was first time I have worn them and they were ruined. What would my Mum say?

Before I could think about anything else, I hear a loud voice shouting “YOUR TEA IS READY!!!” That was my jungle call for me to go home, very subtle!

I take my muddied trainers off and put them in the garage and make my way inside for my tea. Comments are made by both parents, where are your new trainers? I confess, leaving out the full details of the BMX carnage. To my surprise the old man offers to clean them for me, he must have forgotten the previous family meal were Inspector Poirot smelt a cigarette in the dining room.

A few days pass, dodging school work and avoiding setting myself on fire I feel the need to wear the newly cleaned with such tender love and care Adidas Jeans.

The garage is locked so I ask for key and excitedly make my way to the garage, its always a challenge opening these doors. The key doesn’t fit properly, but it looks like the door has been forced open. A break in? a real case for Inspector Poirot! He is probably too busy getting fingerprint swabs from discarded tab ends somewhere.

I look around, nothing seems to have been stolen. My beloved Firebird Freestyler is still there and the old mans 3^rd set of golf clubs seem untouched. So, it looks like we have been very lucky and nothing is missing. But hang on a minute what about my freshly cleaned trainers? Looking around I could not find them anywhere. But in the middle of the garage floor was a dirty protest! It was definitely not Charlie the family cat she was not big enough to be the rightful owner of that.

So it looks like we did have a thief after all, and he must have been caught short!

After weeks of investigation and forensics by Inspector Poirot AKA my Dad, it was decided the perpetrators must have been from the local borstal at the top of the street. Charlie the cat was in the clear and was never brought in for questioning and asked to provide a stool sample!